Advent

Today was a bad day for naps, but the up side is everybody went to sleep early. I had the luxury of an afternoon nap, though, myself, because Shpresa was here to watch the kids for a few hours.

With all the rain lately, it seems like we go to the park about once a week instead of twice a day like we used to. I've had to come up with some rainy-day indoor activities - al

though Valerie is pretty good at that herself. Lately her fun has been playing pretend games with her toy animals - she changes their diapers, bathes them, feeds them raisins and juice, puts them in our shoes and drives them around, and of course hides them and pretends she can't find them.

One thing I started is a home-made Advent Calendar - I decided just to start Dec 1. Every day I will cut out another little picture and tape it to the tree. I haven't drawn 25 things yet but I have about 2 weeks' worth here. I'll put up the manger on the 24th and add the Baby on the 25th (so, out of chronological order a little bit since the shepherds and wise men didn't come til AFTER he was born... oh well).

There's a lot of Christmas stuff appearing in shops around the city, but I noticed it's all secular - trees, lights, snowmen, reindeer, Santas, etc. - nothing referencing Jesus at all. I wanted to get a nativity set but I guess I'll have to make my own - actually the idea for this "calendar" came when I started thinking how to make my own creche. If/When our shipment comes we have some Christmas books in it that I can use as well.